We are all guardians of Democracy

The West Point class of 2024 graduated at Michie Stadium yesterday.  President Joe Biden was the graduation speaker.  Biden did not use his speech to the cadets, as presidents have done before him, to announce any new foreign policy doctrines or policy objectives, but rather, as the New York Times reported today, “The president used the moment to suggest a sharp contrast with Mr. Trump.”.

Biden reminded the graduating cadets of their solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution: “On your very first day at West Point, you raised your right hands and took an oath not to a political party, not to a president, but to the Constitution of the United States of America,” Biden told the cadets. “Nothing is guaranteed about our democracy in America,” he added. “Every generation has an obligation to defend it, to protect it, to preserve it, to choose it. Now it’s your turn.”

Biden quoted from a letter written in 2020 by West Point alumni to the graduating class of that year.  The letter was put together by Donna Matturro McAleer, a 1987 graduate of West Point who has spent years working for women’s rights and equal opportunity for women in the military.  I played a role in the letter, reading an early draft and making suggestions, and I was a signatory to the letter, along with 12 members of my class, 1969.

Biden asked the class of 2024 to “Remember what over a thousand graduates of West Point wrote to the Class of 2020 four years ago: The oath you’ve taken here, quote, ‘has no expiration date,’ they said. Not for you, not for your country. It’s important to your nation now as it’s ever been. Keep it, honor it, and live it.”

Donna and I and the more than a thousand West Pointers who signed that letter are proud that it lives on in the words of President Biden’s address to the class of 2024. We wrote, “The oath taken by those who choose to serve in America’s military is aspirational. We pledge service to no monarch; no government; no political party; no tyrant. Your oath is to a set of principles and an ideal expressed in the Constitution and its amendments. Our Constitution establishes freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of religion, of equal protection under the law regardless of race, color, or creed.”

Thank you, President Biden, for reminding us that these words are as true today as when we warned four years ago, “When fellow graduates fail to respect the checks and balances of government, promote individual power above country, or prize loyalty to individuals over the ideals expressed in the Constitution, it is a travesty to their oath of office.”

Especially today, we cannot take for granted our freedom and our commitment to defend it.  West Pointers learn, when necessary, to defend our Constitution with rifles.  But we can all defend it with our votes.  As President Biden told the class of 2024, we are all guardians of Democracy. This is our country. It’s up to us to keep it and honor it.